through the eyes of a young artist

The Skinner Releasing Technique: Low Flying Trapeze

This summer, I participated in a theatre intensive where there was a low flying trapeze class. We all liked it so much that the company made it a class for the fall season. Naturally, I was super excited because it was so fun in the summer and I signed up right away. The first class was last week, and this time they’re running it a little differently. This class focuses on not just climbing up onto the trapeze and the art of moving on the ropes, but now it’s focused more on a meditative practice called the Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT). I LOVE this concept. Lately I’ve been trying to focus on letting go of stress and just being, and this really helps that dilemma. Basically, when you are born, your body is relaxed and graceful. As you grow older, stress allows your muscles to tense unnecessarily and your alignment gets messed up. SRT is the practice of letting go and letting those muscles relax. It allows you to rediscover your natural alignment and improve upon your physical health and overall wellbeing. This is a very powerful tool to have, especially as an artist. One of the main focuses of the class is balancing your body weight over the bar so you don’t fall off and relaxing muscles that you normally would be too scared to relax and breathing through that pain. It’s really interesting, and ultimately, really relaxing. When you finally do release the muscles needed to go into a certain hang or position it feels so good. During the class, in between the trapeze stuff, we do some guided meditation, which I’ve also been a huge fan of lately. As an IB student, an actor, and a teenager, I’m really busy and really stressed all of the time. This has really helped me with the stress during the week and getting into the “second circle” (which if you didn’t know it’s a very alert state of being that is helpful for performers). If you haven’t read Patsy Rodenburg’s “Second Circle”, I highly recommend it for any aspiring actor. I’ll probably post about it more in depth soon, because it’s one of my most favorite books ever, and it’s been extremely helpful for finding my process. Anything that helps me get into this state of being is awesome, and SRT is definitely one of those things. Here’s some more information about SRT if you want some in depth discussion about it.

A blurry pic in a hang yesterday. This is unfortunately the only pic of me on a trapeze lol. Maybe one day I will actually get a pic of me on the traps online 😂😂😂.